


I Wish I Could Have Kissed You at Midnight

by Vinlan



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alcoholic McCoy, Angst, M/M, New Years, Stubborn James
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-02
Updated: 2014-01-02
Packaged: 2018-01-07 02:45:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1114559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vinlan/pseuds/Vinlan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The New Year counts down and Leonard can't help but remember how his life led to this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Wish I Could Have Kissed You at Midnight

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this](http://karlwhatarebuttonsurban.tumblr.com/post/71836887160/sexti0n-i-wish-i-could-have-kissed-you-at) post on Tumblr.

_"Ten."_

He remembers the first time they met, there in that shuttle in Iowa. He remembers warning him that he might end up puking on him. These words unknowingly forming a bond that will both frustrate him and add adventure to his life for years to come.

_”Nine.”_

The first time it happens is during their Academy days. It’s 3AM when he hears someone knocking on his dorm room door. Leonard ignored the first few sets of knocks, hoping whoever it was would just leave, before finally getting up when they showed no signs of doing that.

Looking back on it, he should have expected to see Jim there when he opened the door. No one else he knew would have bothered him at 3AM, at least not as incessantly as this.

_"Eight."_

He had been drinking, and fighting, it was obvious the moment he opened the door - the way he held himself, the black eye, the cut lip. Leonard didn’t even have time to say anything before Jim was on him, lips pressed firmly against his own, one hand on his waist and the other firmly on his chest. Jim pushed Leonard back gently, closing the door behind him without once breaking away from McCoy.

McCoy could easily have broken away from Jim, avoided the whole situation, but a part of him didn’t want to. Instead, he responded to the kiss, relaxed, and let Jim guide him to the bed. He could still taste that first kiss, the metallic taste of the blood from Jim’s split lip mixed with the raw emotion made it unforgettable.

Leonard remembers the pain that came with making that decision, how cold he was when he woke up a few hours later, Jim nowhere to be seen. He didn’t see him again for the next week and a half as Jim avoided him, ignored his comms, almost disappeared from McCoy’s life in general.

_"Seven."_

But after that week and a half, Jim mysteriously started showing up again. He acted like nothing ever happened, and if that was what it meant to keep Jim as a friend, Leonard was alright with that.

_"Six."_

It didn’t happen again until after their confrontation with Nero. Leonard knew about Jim’s dad, everybody did, he just never brought it up because it never seemed like something Jim wanted to talk about. But after Nero, it was different.

It wasn’t like the first time. It wasn’t a spontaneous, alcohol induced, tangle of limbs. This time Jim just showed up in his quarters, solemn and deep in thought, his lips formed a tight line as if he was forcing himself to keep his mouth shut.

Leonard was about to say something, a joke maybe, he couldn’t even remember because Jim finally spoke to him. It was the first time he had heard about Jim’s life as a child, about everything. Jim told him about his mother, his feelings of inadequacy as he compared himself to his father his whole life, as the words of his step-father dug deeper into his psyche than anything else.

McCoy let him talk. Jim needed this, someone to listen to him, someone who didn’t compare him to his father. Jim finally did something that proved to everyone that he was meant for something greater, he could finally step out of his father’s shadow and write his own name in the stars.

_"Five."_

Even after that, Jim was still distant. They shared moments together, shared their beds more often than not, but there were times when he distanced himself from McCoy. He would acknowledge him, but that was it, only speaking to him when he absolutely had to and nothing more.

And then Kahn happened.

No one could have expected it at that moment, afterwards, sure, it was obvious. James T. Kirk - always living in his father’s shadow, always having to prove himself, gave his life for his crew. For those few moments, before they figured out that they had a chance of saving him, McCoy was broken. He was honestly lost, unaware of what his future looked like anymore without Jim.

_"Four."_

Of course, that didn’t last long. Jim was revived and everything was fine.

Except it wasn’t.

Jim distanced himself more after that, after Leonard told him how he felt when Jim was dead. The only time they end up together is when Jim has had a bit too much to drunk, usually after a difficult mission where he’s lost a few lives. He ends up in Leonard’s quarters, telling him that he’s the only one he trusts, how he’s the only one he loves.

Leonard could never, will never, deny Jim.

_"Three."_

Jim was always gone when he woke up. He never sticks around too long, never sticks around for McCoy to tell him how  _he_  feels. It lasts a good while like this, until McCoy can’t take it anymore. In the third year of their five year mission, McCoy personally handed Jim his request for transfer documents. 

Jim looked at the papers, then up at McCoy, and signed them.

McCoy wished then, wishes now, that Jim had asked him if he was sure about leaving.

He would have said no.

_"Two."_

He hears it on the news a couple years later, a day before Christmas Eve. He wasn’t looking for it, news of the Enterprise and of Jim brought up too many bad memories, but there’s no way the news stations wouldn’t have talked about this, every news stations on Earth.

Earth’s hero, James Tiberius Kirk, had died.

_"One."_

If Jim had pushed Leonard away to protect him from the pain he would feel when the inevitable happened, he didn’t help. McCoy didn’t even know how he died,he didn’t care, just knowing that Jim was gone was too much for him.

He starts drinking Christmas morning. He’s surprised he lasted this long. He didn’t want to drink away the pain but it just became unbearable. After the first drop passes his lips, he finds it hard to stop or even care. As soon as he feels the pain start to seep in again, he numbs it with more alcohol.

And now, here he is, in a bar in who knows where, watching the ball drop on another New Year here on Earth. As the New Year approaches, he only has one person on his mind. One thought on his mind.

_"Zero."_

_'I wish I could have kissed you at midnight.'_


End file.
